python - Finding a leaking object

Question

I have a large python code base.

At one point I find out (using guppy but that doesn't really matter) that I have an existing instance of my class BigClass.

At this point of the code I do not expect to have any living instances of BigClass since all of them were supposed to be released. I tried calling gc.collect()

How can I trace down where is this instance, why is it still alive, its properties and so on?

See https://stackoverflow.com/a/33398553/3280538 – flakes Sep 01 '20 at 07:03 — flakes, Sep 01 '20 at 07:03

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 01 '20 at 16:33

You can find all instances of the class:

for obj in gc.get_objects():
    if isinstance(obj, BigClass):
        # DEBUG IT

For debugging the actual objects and how are they referenced:

for ref in gc.get_referrers(obj):
    # Should probably filter here to reduce the amount of data printed and avoid printing locals() as well
    print(ref)

python - Finding a leaking object

1 Answers1